The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

By the time they had bundled her inside the hab-module, the little girl was dazed but fully awake. Out of her p-suit, she stank like a pharm goat and was as skinny as a snake, in a liner that was two sizes too big. Even though the intravenous line had been dripping vitamins, amino acids, and complex carbohydrates from the yeast culture into her blood, she had used up all of her body fat and a good deal of muscle mass in her long sleep. She seemed to be about eight or nine, was completely hairless, and had bronze skin, and those big silver-on-gold eyes that stared boldly at the wrecking crew who hung around her.

Although she responded to her name, she wouldn’t or couldn’t talk; hardly surprising, Maris said, considering what she had been through. When Bruno tried to examine the blood pump that clung to her leg like a swollen leech, she drew her knees to her chest and carefully detached it, then reached behind her head, plucked the tiny machine from the base of her skull, and nicked it away. Bruno deftly caught it on the rebound, and after a brief examination said it was some kind of Russian Sleep gadget. “Some monster, boss,” he said. “I’m disappointed.”

“We could throw her back,” Maris said, “and try for something better.”

Ty laughed, showing for a moment the wad of green gum that lay on his tongue. He was fascinated by the little girl; his fear had transformed directly to excitement and a kind of proprietorial pride. “She’s amazing,” he said. “Could you have done what she did? I couldn’t.”

“None of us could,” Somerset said. “That’s why she can’t be a normal little girl. That’s why we have taken a very grave risk in bringing her aboard.”

“Aw, come on,” Ty said. “Look at her. She’s a kid. She’s half-starved to death. She couldn’t harm a blade of grass.”

“Appearances can be deceptive,” Somerset said.

Alice Eighteen Singh Rai watched them carefully as they spoke about her, but showed no sign that she understood what they were saying.

“She would have died if we had not found her,” Bruno said. “Whatever she is, she needs our help.”

“Of course,” Somerset said. “But we know nothing about her.”

Ty snorted air through his nose. “What are you saying, we should tie her up?”

“We should certainly take precautions,” Somerset said, ignoring Ty’s sarcasm.

Maris decided that Somerset needed something to do, and told him, “Before we can decide anything, I need you to find out everything you can about where Alice came from.”

“Somewhere on Iapetus, I should think,” Somerset said. “That was the shuttle’s point of departure, according to its manifest. It was on a straight run to Mimas when the emp mine intercepted it.”

“I’m sure you can find out exactly where on Iapetus.”

“I will try my best,” Somerset said, and swam off to its cubicle.

“And take the rod out of your ass while you’re about it,” Ty murmured.

“Somerset does have a point,” Bruno said. “We have to think very carefully about what we’re going to do.”

“I’m going to have to come up with some excuse for Barrett,” Maris said. “But first, I’m going to give this little girl her first shower in three hundred days.”

Alice Eighteen Singh Rai scrubbed up well, submitting docilely to the air-mask necessary in the freefall shower. Enveloped in one of Maris’s jumpers, she refused the bags of chow Ty patiently offered one by one, then suddenly kicked off toward the kitchen nook, quick and agile as an eel. She had ripped open a tube and was cramming black olive paste into her mouth before Ty could pull her away by an ankle.

“Let her eat,” Maris said. “I think she knows what her body needs.”

“Man,” Ty said, wonderingly, “she sure is hungry.”

Bruno said, “I have only a minimum of medical training, boss. I don’t know anything about mental illness or brain damage. The autodoc can work up her blood and urine chemistry for chemical signs of psychosis, but that’s about all. I hate to say it, but the Symbiosis ship has better facilities.”

“I don’t want to turn her over to Barrett.”

Bruno nodded. His eyes were dark and solemn under the brim of his knitted cap. “She’s one of us, isn’t she?”

“She’s no ordinary little girl. Somerset is right about that. But she’s no monster, either.”

“She sure is hungry,” Ty said again, watching with tender pride as Alice unseamed her third tube of olive paste.

Maris left her with Ty and Bruno, and, with heavy foreboding, wrote up a false report for the day log and sent it off. Barrett called back almost at once. He said, “I want to believe you, but somehow I’m having a hard time.”

Maris’s first thought was that one of Barrett’s drones had spotted them working around Alice’s nest. She hunched over the com, sweat popping over her body. Her pulse beat heavily in her temples. She said, “If this is about why we’re still behind-”

“Of course it is. And I’m very disappointed.”

“The vacuum organism caused a bigger problem than we anticipated.”

“All you have to do is cut through it,” Barrett said scornfully. “Cut through it, scorch it off, deal with it.”